


A Plaything of the Mind

by Ramul



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alchemy, Burglars, Gen, Magic University - Freeform, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21514816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramul/pseuds/Ramul
Summary: Hadin learns an important lesson: you study for life, not just for passing the next course.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	A Plaything of the Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This one was originally written in 2013.

„Today, we will be talking about mind control.   
Mind you, 'mind control' isn't the right word for this discipline of mental magic, as it is not achieved by forcing your control over the subject's mind but by a nudging of their thoughts into the right directions. The first steps you have learned in your telepathy course last semester, which require a synchronisation of the mind...“  
Hadin stared out of the window as the professor prattled on, thinking about the further proceedings on his blue plague potion he was brewing for the medicine course. Although this was a mandatory course he was in, he didn't care about it or the other mental magic courses, as he was in for the alchemical specialisation; also, the professor's smacking at the beginning of every sentence wasn't helping him with focusing on the lecture.  
„...you will read the thoughts and feelings of your subjects for some time to understand their thinking patterns.“   
Smack.   
„Then you will sneak your own thougths and emotions in.“   
Smack.  
„But be careful, the introduced thoughts will have to fit into the thoughts of your subjects, in a way they will appear like the subject has thought them themselves; otherwise they might notice their minds are being tampered with and those with the appropiate knowledge are able to track foreign thoughts back to their source.“  
 _Smack_.  
Hadin frowned in disgust and returned to his thoughts about the alchemy project, otherwise he would focus on the smacking too much and would remember just as little of the actual lecture. After a few minutes of figuring out what extracts were to mix in the best order and not paying attention to the professor talking and smacking, his focus was suddenly brought back to reality as the words „practice lesson“ entered his ears.   
„...you to pick a table neighbour and try it out on each other. The first step you already know from the telepathy lesson and I advise you to use layered control of your own thoughts, unless you want your training partner to know everything you think about during the test. Any questions before you start?“  
Someone from the back of the room shouted: „Why do we have to practice it on each other, wouldn't it be easier if we used goats for this?“  
The professor gave a wide, scary grin before he gave an answer, beginning with a particularly loud smack.  
„You know, there were many others that thought just like you. Al-Madran, who was teaching here 50 years ago, experimented with dogs to make them more obedient, but all he got was dogs that started to bark and search for nonexistant threats every time he attempted to control their minds. One day the dogs destroyed his office and that was the time he dropped any further attempts at controlling animals. And Yazir attempted to control a fly a single time. The attempt backfired and Yazir, who now thought he was a fly, jumped out of the window, but since he was not a fly and his office was in the second-highest level of the Eastern Tower, he didn't survive this experiment. Human beings are easy to control, because you are a human being, too, and have the same or at least very similar thought patterns and desires. An animal not only thinks in completely different ways, its mind is also much stronger and harder to control. You will not try to control any animals, for the sake of your own safety and sanity. Any other questions? No? Then get started.“  
  
Drat.  
While Hadin did catch most of the more important parts of the introduction, he still had the nagging fear of having missed a crucial part. He didn't expect the practice sessions to begin that early in the course. He turned right to look at his table neighbour, Balun, who was already grinning at him expectantly.  
„Eh, I did miss the part where he explained what exactly we had to do“, Hadin asked quietly.  
„We write a small thing we want to make the partner do, like picking your nose, on a piece of paper, then attempt to mind control the partner to do it without noticing.“  
„You are not really helping me here, Balun.“ His friend surely knew that Hadin did not pay attention in the introduction and now made it to bite him in the rear.   
Balun just grinned and pulled out a pen and a piece of scrap paper.  
  
Hadin was sitting still while Balun was staring intently at him. He knew that everything he was attempting to do now might not stem from his own thoughts. He found the sitting-still unpleasant and thought to turn around and take a look out of the window...no, that might be exactly what Balun wanted. Absent-mindedly, Hadin scratched his nose, thinking what to do. Balun started to snicker.  
„What...oh please don't tell me...“   
Balun just unfolded the piece of scrap paper with an even wider grin and Hadin could read 'Hadin scratching his nose' in small, jerky letters above a doodle of a stickman with a huge nose being scratched.  
„Your turn.“  
„Right...“ Hadin pulled out a piece of paper out of the heap of scrolls lying on his table, and after thinking for a bit, he wrote down 'Sneezing' and folded the piece up. He felt a bit annoyed for being fooled so easily by Balun, and now, after his sense for competition had been awakened, he wanted to make him do something less easy than scratching noses. Then, he faced Balun and began to concentrate.   
As Hadin synchronized his mind with Balun's, he did feel his alertness and saw himself through Balun's eyes. Before he wanted to ruin his intents, he wanted to experiment a bit, on whether he did it right or not. 'Scratch your arm', he thought. He noticed it had failed even before Balun grinned and said: „Too easy“.  
„Not...my intent“ Hadin pressed out, trying not to slip out of the synchronisation. It was clear that direct thoughts were not the right approach, he had to be more subtle. Maybe by thinking about the itch in the nose during an incoming sneeze? Suddenly, there was a crashing noise and a man screaming outside. Seemingly a camel cart has fallen over again. Balun did drop his concentration and was worried about whether the man or the camel were injured. Hadin immediately took the chance and thought about sacks of pepper maybe being loaded on the cart, about one of the sacks becoming unfastened and about the smell of pepper loading the air now down in the street. He was rewarded immediately – hearing one of Balun's horribly loud sneezes never felt so satisfying to Hadin.  
  
After two hours, multiple mutual training sessions full of laughter, embarassment and the need to top off his partner in their own turn, Hadin and Balun were walking southwards, into the general direction of the tavern.  
„Can you believe it? Garal made his table neighbour _sing_!“ Hadin snickered as he remembered that part of the lesson.  
„Garal seems to be pretty good at controlling minds. We should quickly learn mental blocking, before he makes us write the exams for him.“  
Balun suddenly changed the topic. „Do you think it would be acceptable to use mind control on people on the street, just a little bit? Like keeping the beggars away from you or letting the tavern maid throwing you a smile?“  
„No, better not, you know yourself that doing such is illegal and will be persecuted when caught. But“, Hadin added as he thought about the way ahead and where it lead through, „keeping the beggars out of your face no one would complain about.“ Balun just laughed as an answer.  
„But really, do you think it would be acceptable to mentally nudge Kalina a bit to like me?“  
Hadin was somewhat disgusted by the thought. „You know yourself that I am not the right one to ask about girls, but did you think that even through? It will be not much different if you get all your money, go to the slave market and buy yourself a bed warmer. What merit will a girl have if she has a mind that is nothing but an extension of yours?“  
Balun appeared to be shocked and embarassed by this scenario. „No, that's not what I meant, just raising her attention and such, nothing of importance.“  
„Really, if you want her, try it the old way. Lots of people have found each other without any of them having an education in magical arts. Talk to her, tip her generously, you know.“  
„I think it could work the old way. If not, can you brew a love potion for me?“  
„Speaking of love potions, I will go home today early, right after eating. I have a bunch of extracts waiting for me and the potion for the medicine course is due in two days. Sorry.“  
Balun looked a bit disappointed, but he accepted Hadin's decision, since he knew how seriously Hadin was treating his alchemy courses.  
„It's okay, I will tell you tomorrow how it went. But let us eat first. I'm starving, the practice course was really taxing.“  
  
After returning home, letting time fly during extracting, cooking and dissolving, and going to bed early for the astronomical theory course that starts at dawn, Hadin was suddenly woken up by a ruckus in the lower rooms. Thinking that a cat got in through the windows again, he wanted to turn over and continue sleeping, as he heard voices below. He froze. The voices were faint and muffled, but Hadin could hear that they belonged to rather crude men.  
 _Burglars._   
A part of him hoped they would quickly lose interest, as his home was clearly that of a student and he didn't have any valuables. But what if they went up to search the top floor and found him there? He did hear several stories of burglars slitting throats when they had encountered the homeowners and he didn't want to die so young by choking on his own blood. Maybe if he climbed out of the window and made off, but where to go then? Hadin didn't like the thought of going around the town at night, as he might walk into someone worse than the burglars. He had to do something.  
Remembering the lessons of the day, he concentrated on the most annoying of the voices and mentally connected with its source.   
While Balun's mind was controlled and easy-going, the burglar's mind was a storm of unfiltered thoughts, feelings, plans and desires. Hadin did feel the greed, the anticipation, the memories of a woman the man was with two nights ago, he did feel the underlying bloodlust – they were planning to look through his possessions and then kill him anyway, whether they found anything of value or not. As he now shared the senses with the man, he could see there were three burglars that were digging through the books, scrolls and notes on the search for money and treasures; they even checked the heaps of unwashed clothes in the corners and lifted the floor mats to see what was maybe hidden underneath them. One of the men was thin, wiry and resembled a rat, he was also the man's younger brother. The other, who was heavy-set and wore an outwashed, horrible-looking mantle he took from a noble he killed several years ago, was not a relative. In fact, the man strongly disliked him, as he thought him to be incompetent as a leader.   
Hadin found this situation was good to work with. He let the burglar focus on his leader, how he was looking through a pile of filthy clothes on a chair, an utterly ridiculous place to hide anything of value in. He carefully let the disdain grow.  
„Heh, d'ya think there is anything o' value in a pile of unwashed junk?“   
The leader stopped rummaging in the clothes and turned around. „Who are ya to _tell me what to do?_ “  
Hadin could feel the fear of the man to build up, but he drowned it out by anger immediately.  
 _He is not a suitable leader._  
„Yer the one to dig in trousers!“  
„What do ye want to tell me?“  
 _He is too stupid to lead._  
„Who did appoint ye as our leader, anyway?“  
The leader's face was now a grimace of anger and he drew his weapon. „You just shut up, you grunt!“  
„Markel, stop it!“, his brother shouted from a corner.  
 _I am far more deserving to lead than this angry, incompetent idiot._  
The man's anger and redirected bloodlust grew to the point he drew his own weapon.  
„You have led us enough, time for someone who doesn't look for money in filthy underwear!“  
The two burglars went at each other's throats immediately. Hadin stayed in the man's mind to drown out his voice of reason that wanted him to stop attacking his leader, until he was ripped out by a sudden, strong sensation of pain. The leader managed to nearly sever the man's arm. Hadin did gasp in shock at the pain, while the shouting and clanging of weapons continued below. Then he began to concentrate again and slipped into the mind of the man in the corner who screamed at the two fighting to stop.  
Despite the challenger's left arm has been nearly severed, he was still fighting like a lion. His chance came as the leader tripped over a pile of books and the man immediately went after him to cut through his throat. Then, he went to his knees himself.  
„Markel, what have you _done_!?“, the scrawny man screamed.  
„What...have I done...“ Markel repeated. He looked at his left arm, that was dangling off a few strands of muscle and skin, the blood streaming freely from it. Then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.  
„Brother!“ The scrawny man ran to Markel. The sadness he was feeling was overwhelming. As the man frantically tried to bind off his dying brother's arm, Hadin was thinking about how to finish him off, too. It was possible that the remaining burglar would simply leave, but what if the sadness turned into anger he would let out on him? Markel had bled to death by now.   
Between all the sorrow and despair Hadin slipped a simple thought: _I need a drink_. On the search for liquor, Hadin let the man's gaze linger on a large bottle on the table. The man walked towards the bottle and uncorked it; a smell of strong, distilled alcohol, peppered with exotic herbs filled the room. The man first took in the smell, then he took a swig from the bottle. The taste nearly let him forget what had happened barely a minute ago. He was really interested on what herbs have been used to season the liquor. He took another swig. Before he could take a third, he felt a tightness in his throat. He placed the bottle back on the table and scratched his throat. The scratching quickly turned into clawing, as his throat quickly shut off completely and he was unable to breathe.  
Hadin slipped out of the suffocating man's mind again, satisfied of the results. He was alive. The mess in the lower floor will be taken care of at the morning, as everything did look like a group of particularly dumb burglars died from internal disputes. He swore to pay more attention to the non-alchemy courses next time. Thinking of alchemy, he would probably fail to deliver his blue plague potion in time, since one of the burglars just drank half of its most important component.


End file.
